Denver Center's "American Night" sheds a satirical light on immigration issues


Posted: 10/08/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 10/08/2011 01:45:19 AM MDT



Could you pass the U.S. citizenship exam? Do you know the first three words of the Constitution? Or the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment?

"The funny thing is, someone who is really trying to pass this test knows more American history than the average American does," said Richard Montoya, who wrote the disarming naturalization comedy "American Night," opening Thursday at the Denver Center Theater Company's Ricketson Theatre.

"We all took the course," said Sam Gregory, the actor who plays all the Anglo characters in the play. " It was called school. And it was 30 years ago."

Subtitled "The Ballad of Juan Jose," the play is about a Mexican man who is cramming for his civics exam. It's an anxiety- steeped endeavor that launches Juan Jose on a fever dream where a motley crew of unsung immigrants teach him lessons in American history you won't find in any textbook.

While the story is informed by the Arizona immigration controversy, Montoya says his play "celebrates those who have been stuck in the margins of our history."

Not that Montoya has ever had to take the test himself. He's a proud, seventh-generation American whose father is the celebrated poet Jose Montoya ("El Louie"). Still, he's sometimes assumed to be an immigrant.

"When somebody tells me, 'Go back to where you come from,' " Montoya says, "I'm like, 'OK, I'll go back to the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego.' That's where I came from."

In his story, a candidate for citizenship is given two oral exams — a language test that covers reading, writing and speaking; and a civics test that covers history and government. For the civics portion, candidates study from a 100-question guide that explains each answer in detail. An administrator then directly asks 10 of those questions, such as, "The House of Representatives has how many voting members?" Get six correct, and you advance.

One of the questions raised by the play is not, "What does it mean to be an American?"

Rather, "What is reasonable for us to ask of someone seeking to become an American?"

"What's reasonable to ask of them is what is normally asked of all Americans — and so many (immigrants) are already doing," said Montoya. "That is demonstrating a work ethic that is so much a part of the American character.

"Both my parents worked in the fields of California. That's hard work, man, and they contribute through taxes."

Montoya, frankly, found the civics test to be a little boring.

"Who the first postmaster general was isn't important to me," said Montoya. "I am far more interested in knowing of someone, Why do you want to leave Mexico? What do you want here? And what is the price you should have to pay for that?"

Gregory thinks it is reasonable to ask of anyone willing to renounce their loyalty to their home country to know how our government functions, and how to participate as a fully involved citizen. But he also believes the price thousands have paid for more than 235 years just to get here ought to be a primary consideration as well.

"One of the arguments the play makes is that people have always made these huge, life-risking efforts to get here," Gregory said. "Would I go five days across the desert with no water to come here? No. But somebody else who really, really wants to be here, will. So maybe that alone should qualify you as a citizen."

What's the difference?

So whatever happened to "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free?" And when did it stop applying to those south of the border?

Montoya is a founding member of Los Angeles' Culture Clash, a 25-year-old, politically charged comic performance ensemble that is presenting "American Night" here in partnership with the Denver Center. The play has nine actors playing 85 characters spanning Teddy Roosevelt to Sacagawea to Malcolm X to Bob Dylan to controversial union leader Harry Bridges​. The play's comedy stylings have been likened to the Marx Brothers​ and Monty Python​, with some pathos mixed in.

And despite natural interest from Denver's large Latino and Chicano communities, Montoya is well aware it will be seen here by a mostly Anglo audience. And he has a promise for them.

"I'll stop short of guaranteeing a Denver Broncos Super Bowl this year, but I will say that a lot of folks are going to be cheering for Juan Jose, when I don't know if, at first, they think that they might."

While Montoya says the play "will tickle their fancies with kid gloves," there is a deadly serious subtext that became plain to him last year, when Arizona passed the broadest and strictest anti-illegal immigration law in the country. It allows enforcement officers there to ask anyone they think might be illegal to produce their papers, or to conduct background checks without further cause.

"The border issues are so polarizing, and there is absolutely not an ounce of humor to be had in any of that — except in the hands of Culture Clash," Montoya said.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne sees no humor in the plays of Culture Clash. They're on a list of banned books that can't be studied in Arizona public schools — part of a law passed last year that makes it illegal for any school program to advocate for "ethnic solidarity," among other things.

"And how far is a banned book from a burned book?" said Montoya, who has written Sheriff Joe Arpaio​, the enforcer of Arizona's immigration laws in Maricopa County, as a satiric character in the play that Arizona schoolchildren aren't allowed to read.


Montoya is not an advocate of open borders — just a more open path to legal citizenship.

"If more people could be allowed to take that test, and pass that citizenship test, it is reasonable to think they will become contributing members to the America that I love," he said.

Montoya, who was in Denver last month in support of the Su Teatro Chicano theater company, had intended to be in the acting company performing "American Night" in Denver, but he is in Los Angeles making his first feature film instead.

"But the land of Corky Gonzales​ has very much been on my mind," he said of the late Colorado activist. "I really want Denver Latinos to see this piece because just as our middle-class Hispanic population has grown and made gains — then the Arizona laws came around, and all of the sudden, we're a target again. That informs a great deal of where 'American Night' is coming from.

"The play is a reminder to all audience members that no matter where you are from, we are all just a degree or two away from immigrant parents."

http://www.denverpost.com/theater/ci_19057925